Learning More About Social Media

July 9, 2012 marketing, Social Marketing, social media, social media marketing, social media trends No comments

internet marketing agencyYou feel fairly confident about your skills using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. But in just a few months that could all evaporate. We’re all well aware that Facebook likes to change their interface about 3-4 times a year by manipulating the layout and such. Facebook isn’t the only social media outlet to constantly improve their design and function. The whole concept of social media is to create platforms that are user-friendly. How can you stay up-to-date and brush up your skills?

  1. Read blogs: A quick search will lead you to hundreds of blogs that focus primarily on social media. Sign up for an RSS feed. You will be informed every day on changing social media news.
  2. Attend webinars: Never leave the comfort of your desk as you learn valuable information. There are both paid and free webinars.
  3. Sign up for newsletters: If you don’t mind receiving daily or weekly newsletters, you can get a crash course with well written articles. Check out SmartBrief and SocialFresh.
  4. Look at trending topics: Every so often the trending topics on Twitter are about relevant news and not Justin Bieber’s new haircut.
  5. Receive training: People serious about educating themselves on online marketing should sign up for a training program. There are courses available both online and off.

Articles – Not Just for Magazines Anymore

July 6, 2012 Ajax Union, Article Marketing No comments

It used to be, just a few short years ago, that article writing was saved mainly for print publications. This was based on the notion that the internet age had too short attention spans to read anything 400 words and above. With the advent of sites like About.com and other long form “how-to” sites, the article has made the jump from print to the internet world, and it’s a great way to help promote your business and positively influence your SEO.

Take a topic that is relevant to your business, a topic people are curious about, and write a short how to, tutorial, or explanation. Make these articles about 400 words or more. If you’re a baking supply store, write about how you should measure ingredients by weight instead of by their volume (oz. vs cup.) Don’t include the name of your business, your website, or any links. Use your keywords liberally but don’t force them.

After you’ve written this article that is informative and easy to read, you want to distribute it to several sites. Find article distribution websites and make sure you read their terms of use. Create resource paragraphs for yourself as well, these will be the reader’s link back to your website and your blog. Articles are a great way to reach a wider audience by providing topical and relevant information that pertains to your business.

Understanding Social Bookmarking

July 5, 2012 online marketing, seo, social media No comments
social bookmarking

social bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Delicious are used by people to bookmark sites they like to peruse through and refer back to from time to time.  But more importantly, in terms of SEO efforts, you can share said sites with other people using the same social bookmarking services.

As a business, you want to show both current and prospective customers on the Internet what you have to offer and social bookmarking is another way to do it very effectively.  By bookmarking certain links – e.g. links to pages from your own site or your company’s blog posts – you can share them with many more people thereby increasing both your company’s exposure and page ranking on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Users on StumbleUpon and Delicious will be able to vote up links to your website that your business has put up which puts you at a greater advantage than those who have not tapped into this very effective online marketing strategy.  By using the right keywords in the title, body, and tags of your submissions, it increases your chances immensely.

Social bookmarking can lead to more traffic, increased site ranking, and then some.  Ask an internet marketing agency today for more details!

Strategizing Organic Internet Marketing

July 4, 2012 Blogging for Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing, internet marketing strategy, internet marketing trends No comments

Organic internet marketing can produce really effective results, but it does require work. A real strategy must be outlined in order to reap the benefits of it. It’s more than jargon and linking, it’s a step-by-step process. True web visibility will occur, given the right approach, even if not instantaneously.

You need to boost visibility through both content and social media. Content includes blog posts and article writing. Prose, along with authoritative links, images, and other media, such as videos or audio clips, can greatly impact your presence. The content should be aligned with your goals– promoting your website, mission statement, and promoting a brand.

Once this is established, you use social media to spread the word, start conversation, and build online relationships. By engaging viewers and consumers you are actually developing brand awareness. The more familiar your website and company is in conversation, the more naturally it will gain attention of searches. It’s not forced, but an organic rise to popularity.

The two together should develop trust and value in your company while creating and maintaining a familiar brand. The connections built through these two systems should be long-lasting, and the online community should remain active. You can achieve these goals by assessing the competition, the target audience, and creating a calendar to follow online posting schedules. These are two basics to organic internet marketing.

Focusing Your Efforts With Keywords

July 3, 2012 keywords No comments

Choosing keywords for your business is important, but you don’t want to just pick a vast amount that doesn’t allow you to focus properly. You don’t want to pull keywords from everything you sell, or break up your services into too many different keywords. You want to have a focused list so that you can work on building around each without spreading yourself out thin.

One great way to get a hold on keywords is to include your local area within it. If you are a tax lawyer in New Jersey, you might want to include “New Jersey” in a couple of keywords. It may be hard to rank against all the other tax layers in the nation with a generic keyword, but you’ll probably rank higher and find more of the clients you are looking for if you include your locality.

You never want to keyword stuff, of course. Especially with the newest updates to Google, that will be caught right away and seen as “black hat SEO” which can get you, among other things, de-indexed from Google.

Always keep keywords in mind, constantly track how they are performing and always consider changes and improvements!

Keep Up a Good Twitter Ratio

July 2, 2012 social media, twitter, Twitter Marketing No comments

Twitter is an important social media outlet, for both individuals and businesses alike. For businesses, it is yet another way to become involved with customers, clients, and to put your name out there on the vast interweb. There’s always been a sort of unspoken rule about keeping a good Twitter ratio. This means that you shouldn’t follow 500 people and only have 10 followers. Of course it’s always better to have more followers than people you follow, but unless you’re a celebrity, you probably can’t afford to be that choosy and elitist.

While it’s certainly not bad for you to follow more people, do not follow anyone just for the sake of it. The idea is not to just follow people you are interested in, but to follow people that you think will be interested in you. Think about how you view your personal Twitter account. Do you always return a follow? Do you bother “clogging up” your feed with pointless tweets? So why would you do the same for your business? Twitter is just like any other social network. You want to connect with people relevant to what you do.

Let an SEO company like Ajax Union help you manage your Twitter account and keep a healthy ratio.

Is the Blog Tour Dead?

June 29, 2012 Ajax Union, Bloggers, BloggingTips No comments

People have been asking this question for over two years. “Is the blog tour dead?” To answer this we first need to know what a blog tour is. Basically, a person such as an author, celebrity, or business professional seeks out other high traffic and quality blogs to either do guest posts or an interview. It’s like a book store tour only you never have to leave your sofa.

The answer to “is it dead?” is: absolutely not. This comes with the caveat that you know your audience and you know your niche. You need to have a list of blogs that are getting high traffic that would be interested in your topic. If you’re a financial expert you don’t want to be interviewed on a baking blog and chances are they’d turn you down anyway.

The blogs you choose need to have a following, good quality content, a high SEO ranking, and something else: you. You need to bring something to the table. This is for all intents and purposes a partnership. You have to have something to offer the readers of that blog. If you just rehash old information or do it in a boring way, no one is going to want to host your blog tour.

Do your research, have something to say, and know where to go and you can have a successful blog tour.

How Networks And Links To Help You Rank

June 27, 2012 blog promotion, Blogging for Internet Marketing, BloggingTips, how to use keywords, Internet Marketing No comments

The interaction of online material is fascinating. You can almost think of online content like stars in a galaxy. Some burn slow and dim, some burn bright very quickly and fade fast, and others burn bright and can still be seen light years after their cycle. It all has to do with their composition and their surroundings. Now, in terms of SEO, what does this mean?

Well, for one, have you every found a site with valuable information but it just doesn’t rank? Or a site that hits the hot spot fast in Google but quickly falls down below the fold after the first day or so? This could be because of the way the links and the network interact with the post. For example, you can get a site to rank well temporarily simply by sharing it strongly with social networks and media sites, and by getting conversation started. If it’s shared by influential people it can get higher ranks for a limited time.

However, it won’t stay there for long unless there are authoritative links. Keywords can be used many ways. You need external links and links to root domains. Sometimes partial match is more effective than exact match queries now, and a lot has to do with content rather than anchor text. Overall, relevance is important, but it must still feel natural, not keyword stuffed or forced. Branding and authority to links also configures in, sometimes more so than absolute relevance.

Essentially, your SEO content should be written as if you know what you’re talking about and you must appear to have a viable amount of authority and clout.

 

Musing on Social Media

June 27, 2012 Facebook, Social Marketing, social media, social media marketing, twitter No comments

social mediaWhen social media came into being, it was a way in which people were able to connect with one another and stay connected.  Each social media outlet – e.g. Twitter & Facebook – created its own unique community and culture of millions of people; as a business, you want to tap into as much of these communities as possible.  You do this by having strong a Public Relations presence in either, or better yet both, social media platforms.  But there are things you need to understand about how to properly use social media to boost your customer base.  Here are but a few things you need to know:

  • Use social media to connect with and engage current and prospective customers intelligently.
  • Become, and stay, compelling to your audience.
  • Do not post too often or use social media only as a another way to market your products or services, otherwise they will leave very quickly.
  • You have to ask yourself, what does it take to grab the attention of your community and keep them there?  Understand that and how to use that information with social media and your consumer base will grow.

These are but a few tidbits on how PR and social media go hand-in-hand.  For more information, visit a marketing agency today.

The Importance of a Good Reputation on Twitter

June 26, 2012 twitter No comments

Twitter is huge. So huge that often, when a celebrity or company says something that people find controversial it blows up all over the internet. We hear every day about tweets that a variety of people and businesses make and sometimes it is for things they don’t want highlighted. Then it becomes a PR mess of trying to save face and fix the problem so that people forget about it.

When you have a Twitter account for your business, you need to always be careful about the things you say and do. You are representing your business and social media reputation really matters. One wrong tweet can be blown out of proportion and spread throughout other news feeds and social sites.

It is best when tweeting to keep things light and keep it about your business as much as possible. It is definitely OK to have a little fun commenting on news or pop culture, or make a joke or two, but make sure it is in the best interest of your company. You should always be aware of what is being tweeted, especially if you aren’t the one taking care of your own tweets. Besides, focusing on what you do is what your followers want. It is why they followed you in the first place!

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